


Actions Speak Louder

by HonestlyJustHereForALaff



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Ficlet, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 02:31:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18437189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HonestlyJustHereForALaff/pseuds/HonestlyJustHereForALaff
Summary: Set during "Vaulting Ambition"What Hugh thinks about as Paul worries he didn't show his love enough.





	Actions Speak Louder

**Author's Note:**

> Life came at me quick, let's say. I'm definitely coming back to Spectrum once things calm down, but for now, I recently got into Discovery and just had to write a short something about these two nerds. Enjoy!

“Did you know I loved you? I don’t think I told you enough.”

Hugh had to smile.

He thought of how he would get at least two messages a day on his PADD reminding him to eat. They always came at the same time, so at first he thought Paul had automated them, which was still very sweet. One day, though, he’d gotten through two surgeries and four minor cases before his PADD pinged, a full two hours late.

_Got caught up analyzing some new spores, please please PLEASE tell me you ate something_

It was the only thing in his “Saved Messages” folder.

He thought of the times when he’d come back to their room, completely exhausted, and Paul would smile and get off the bed, smoothing out the covers. His way of offering a back massage.

Hugh gave them to Paul, too, but he was a doctor. He actually knew what he was doing. Paul, on the other hand, was terrible at them. No matter how Hugh tried to correct him, he always went too soft on the shoulders, too hard on the spine, and had no soothing rhythm Hugh could settle into. Nothing in the world was less relaxing than a back massage from Paul.

He always looked forward to them.

He thought about about how, whenever they stopped somewhere hospitable, and he couldn’t leave himself for whatever reason, he always found some ridiculous gift on his desk the next day. A Nuvian hula girl doll, a plastic knight’s helmet from that one planet in the Omicron Delta region, even one of those “I’m With Stupid” shirts from Earth.

He knew Paul wasn’t terrible at gifts in general. The ones he got for his birthday were always incredible--the clothes Stamets got him fit better than anything he’d ever bought himself. Was it some sort of hint? Should he be getting Paul random gifts, too? That didn’t seem like him. He chalked it up to yet another thing about his boyfriend he’d never understand, at the time.

One day, they stopped somewhere. Hugh didn’t know where, because he was stuck treating half the damn ship with the flu. He was the only medical officer who hadn’t come down with it, so it had been all his responsibility for two days straight. And of course, when the ship took off again, many patients' stomachs didn’t respond well, so he didn’t make it to bed until very, very late.

The room was dark when he came in, not surprisingly. He resigned himself to sleeping in his clothes, rather than try to navigate that process in the dark. But all of a sudden, the bedside lamp came on, and Hugh almost jumped back before he recognized the man beneath the helmet, and the familiar T-shirt, and holding the hula doll.

Which he quickly put down to replace with castanets, which he started playing. Terribly.

Hugh later blamed the exhaustion when he doubled over laughing, getting so loud that Paul had to shush him, remind him it was the middle of the night. Of course, that only made both of them laugh harder.

That was all he’d wanted, Hugh realized. Not a gift in return. Not even a thank-you.

Just a smile. A laugh.

And he thought about just now, when they were sitting together on what was and wasn’t their bed for the very last time, with that other Paul, the wrong Paul, banging on the door. He could have chosen anything to drown it out. Not only did everything that had ever been and would ever be exist in the network, but no one could navigate it like Paul. The entire world was at his fingertips.

And he’d chosen _that_ aria.

“You showed me. 

“All the time.” 


End file.
